Wanted to see how others would handle this situation (sorry for long post).

I am the commissioner of a WSOP poker league (10 tournaments, point system, etc.). This is the first year we are offering rebuys in our league (unlimited rebuys for a $6,000 starting stack during the first 6 levels). The rebuys have added a new element to my recordkeeping, so when somebody rebuys, I write down a rebuy next to their name on my scoring sheet.

During the last tournament, to further help with the tracking of rebuys, I had a chip rack with twenty $5k chips and twenty $1k chips. When someone wanted a rebuy, they would get one $5k chip and one $1k chip. No other $5k chips were introduced into the tournament at this point except by the rebuy process. Most of the time I would handle the rebuys, but a few times other players would handle the rebuy if I was in a hand.

Good group of guys, usually nothing to worry about in terms of integrity, I have been running the league for eight years...yada yada yada...but we had an incident. After the re-buy period ended (level 6), we took a break. I had 17 rebuys on my scoring sheet, but when I went to the chip rack, there was only one $5k chip and one $1k chip, when there should have been three of each.

During the break, I talked to another player and we went around and counted all of the $5k chips that were on the three tables. There were 17 of the $5k chips which matched the number of rebuys I had on my scoring sheet (it also matched the number based on rebuys per player because no players had switched tables at this point of the tournament and I knew who had rebuys (i.e., four $5k chips at table one, five $5k chips at table two and eight $5k chips at table three)). I then verbally asked each player to confirm his number of rebuys and that also totaled 17 rebuys, and matched the number of rebuys per table.

During rounds 7-9, we re-drew once we hit sixteen players and combined into two tables. At the end of round 9, the other player and I once again counted the $5k chips on the tables and what do you know...there were now nineteen $5k chips on the tables. Whoever had stolen the two extra $5k chips had introduced them into the tournament during rounds 7-9 (not sure when they introduced the two $1k chips as $1k chips are part of initial starting stack).

The other player and I did not have eyewitness proof as to who took the chips, nor did we see anyone actually putting the extra chips into the tournament. We played out the tournament and I sent an email to the league the next day explaining what had happened and I got back a wide range of responses...everything from void the tournament to the results must stand.

Obviously, going forward I will be the only one handing out re-buy chips, accessing the chip case, etc. But, if you were the league commissioner, how would you handle this situation with regards to the past tournament and moving the league forward? Thanks for your thoughts!!

Results stand, until a cheater can be identified, imo

You are mostly likely miscounting the rebuys and someone(s) are not being honest about their rebuys. But without proof and this:

you'll have to eat the error. ONE AND ONLY ONE PERSON should be in charge of the bank, which includes both money and chips. And since only one person should be in charge of the bank, the bank eats all errors.

The most awful thing is the fact that at least one person is an outright cheat.

FWIW - If it should happen again, remove all the 5k chips from play immediately and not introduce them again that tourney. Either 5 more 1k chips, or chip those players up to the next denomination.

As played, results stand. At least everyone knows.

Good thing it was a tourney, and not cash that you would then have to come up with.

What does this mean? Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, that's not most likely. It is most likely he is accurately counting the rebuys, everyone is being honest about their number of rebuys, and there is a thief.

What does this entail?

When I run MTTs, there is me who handles cash and keeps tally, and one and only one designated helper who hands out chips, from the chip case that is closed and latched (not locked, but you can hear the latches snapping open) and the case is on a table at the edge of the room where no one needs to be unless they're getting chips. If one of us is in a hand (or getting beer), the other can take the cash or pass out the chips. If we're both engaged (in a hand, in bathroom, can't find the bottle opener), rebuy dude will have to wait the 45 seconds to get his chips.

In OP's case, I can't see how you can void the results, since you have no idea who did what. I know this won't be much consolation to most of your players, but the fact is, even a 10K bump to someone's stack doesn't have massive ICM implications. Here's my bored-at-work math on icmpoker.com, came up with this:

http://www.icmpoker.com/icmcalculator/#RVCy

For those who don't want to click, I asumed 5 ITM, max set up in this icm calc is 15 players so I gave them all 13333 chips, and one guy 14333. (This was based on 23 entries and 17 rebuys, for 240000 chips, or 13333 per person when down to 18 runners, when the stolen chips were introduced. The increase in prize equity for the thief went up just 0.4%, not nearly enough to void the results imo.)

In your math, it should be 23333 instead of 14333.

Thanks for the responses - I personally agree with those who say the results should stand.

There is a lot of money at stake here (we are on pace to send 4 players to the WSOP main event, plus we pay out $2,300 per night for each of the 10 tournaments). For this tournament, we had 21 players ($200 entry fee) and 17 rebuys ($200 per rebuy). When someone wants a rebuy, they would simply yell "rebuy" and I would walk over and hand the chips to the person and collect the cash (probably did this for 14 of the 17 rebuys), except if I was in a hand. At the end of the night, I reconciled the cash, and I had $7,600, so I truly don't think I missed any rebuys. Additionally, when we counted the $5k chips on the tables during the break after the rebuy period ended, there were 17 $5k chips, which matched my scoring sheet and matched the verbal re-buy confirmation I did during the break (and other players at the tables knew who had rebought at their table). Everything added up to 17, so I simply think we have a thief in the league and I will have to take extra precautions going forward to make sure it does not happen again.

With 21 starting stacks of $6,000 and 17 rebuys of $6,000, there should have been $228,000 of chips in play. With the extra $12,000 of stolen chips, the total chips in play increased to $240,000. Thus, the stolen chips represented 5% of the total chips in play ($12,000 / $240,000).

Thanks for everyone's responses - very much appreciated!!!

Good catch. It increased the thief's equity by 4%, not 0.4%, to 10.4% vs 6.4 for everyone else.

A) how do you catch this mid tourney, confirm you have 17 chips from all the stacks and then just let play continue with them?!? These chips should have been removed immediately.

B) you're dealing with thousands of dollars a night and let anyone into the chip box?!?

Let this be a cheap lesson to you- there is 1 banker that has access to chips/cash. That should be the person running he game unless they really trust someone else but it should never be anyone/everyone honor system. **** that, you're dealing with people gambling, trust no one

Yes , this is way too big a game for sloppy home game bank procedures. We are tighter than this in our .25-.50 cash game. BUT, what is done is done. Let results stand. Announce what has happened and how you are going to proceed in the future. It could have been worse and likely will be if you don't restrict access. I think you get it OP. Good luck.

Something I would also be worried about, since this situation could come up in the future, is people pulling big chips off the table if they know their tourney is essentially done. Then they obv brig them back at a later date and put them on the table then. As a precaution, if I were you, I would have the a plan in place beforehand because at least 1 person has shown that they don't care about cheating all of you

Thanks Bene Gesserit and johnny_on_the_spot for your responses.

Going forward, I plan to track how many chips are in the chip case before the tournament begins, and then reconcile the chips again at the end of the night. My chip set is one of those acrylic carrying cases that holds 10 racks. So, it should be pretty simple to reconcile:

3 racks of $25 chips (300)
3 racks of $100 chips (300)
1.5 racks of $500 chips (150)
1.5 racks of $1,000 chips (150)
0.5 racks of $5,000 chips (50)
0.5 racks of $10,000 chips (50)

I would not have thought that I would need to do this, but like you said, there is someone willing to cheat so extra steps need to be put in place.

Again, thanks for the comments and suggestions!!

A back up set of different color or design high denomination chips will help in that you have something in place if some from your usual set go missing.

Also if you have commonly available chips you might want to consider other options to prevent someone else from buying the same chips and ringing them in.

A set of custom chips combined with thorough control of the chips not in play is the best way to prevent these sorts of things from happening.

Consider a Nest cam (I like the Logi Circle) for protection at less than the cost of one buy in.